Semi-Automated Tiling Jig

We had a cool idea for a Handibot jig brought to us by Sallye at ShopBot today. The video speaks for itself, check it out!

Semi-Automated Tiling Jig

THAT is a really cool idea.

I'm impressed!

Wow!

That's actually not really hard to do... You can do it with some really simple Shopbot code. Basically you output your toolpath from a VCarve and it creates a Shopbot file which is just a text file with a series of moves.

At the end of each file you just insert a simple command to poke the tool into the piece and jog over 6", and then you start the next file.

This definitely seems like an awesome idea. This seems like with some tweaking it might even work in x and y, although it obviously seems easier with feed through.

Can you provide an example on how to do this for Vcarve noobies ?

I could probably figure it out through trial and error but would hate to break a bit if I do it wrong or something. Another thing I was thinking how well that would work with an upcut instead v-carve bit. I was thinking if there is a way to drill few holes for indexing purposes and then use them later to shift material.

Boris, have you gotten into the Shopbot code at all? Like how to send move commands to the Shopbot?

Boris,
You would not be able to use this trick for x and y unless you came up with a genius jig because pulling a board along in one axis you need guides along the other.

As to the dropping shallow holes with the up cut, yes, yes, yes! I discovered this messing around trying to get better index,,,, I drop a hole at all 4 corners of anything that won't be seriously buggered up by them. 0,6 becomes 0,0 for the next tile and you can get dead on with some light tapping.

If you want to mess around with some code to move things automatically, I would try playing around with some manual move commands. When your Handibot is idle, there's a command line that you can punch commands like this into:

[www.shopbottools.com]

After you get comfortable with those commands and what they do, you can open a VCarve generated SBP file and look at the code. If you scroll all the way to the end you can see the "END" command.

Any of these move commands can be inserted before that END line. So what you might experiment with doing is a move command that goes to 0, drops the tool into the material with the spindle OFF just a tad, and then slides it over 6".

Before you put that code into a cut file, you can play around with it manually.

If you check out either the handibot or 100kSchools.org blog, you can see another setup for a handibot jig. For that setup, I created a jig that will hold a blank that is ready to be VCarved. I then created an .sbp file that will move the blank out from under handibot
and allow me to change the blank. The code for that file, with comments, is posted below:

'Moves jig for hex blanks out from under the handibot
'an apostrophe in front of a line is a comment for the user and will be ignored by the ShopBot software
'unless there is a pause after it...then the comment will be displayed on screen
'and the software will pause until the user hits the "enter" or OK
JH 'Jog Home
'remove back pegs
pause
m2,3,8 'Move 2 axes to the location 3 in the X axis and 8 in the Y axis
mz,-.05 'Move the Z axis to -.05 below the surface of the material
'remove front pegs
pause
my, 0 'Move the Y axis to 0
'replace the blank
pause
my,8 'Move the Y axis to 8
'replace front pegs
pause
JH
'replace back pegs
Pause

You can copy the entire code, open up the ShopBot software (preview or move/cut mode), choose FE to edit a file, then new for a new file, and paste into the file. Give it a name (I chose something snappy like: replace blank for handibot jig) and save it in a place where you know where it is. Run it in preview to get a feel for how it will work.